Back to this great restaurant - more expensive now - but where else can you get hare in Suffolk? We should be happy to pay more for good local seasonal food, and this is a new taste for me. The week before I got my son to skin and clean two rabbits after school (We went to see The Road - it's good to know how to fend for yourself...) I cooked them with red wine, bacon, leeks... it's satisfying to eat virtually for free and teach your children how to do it.
For years I have been trying to establish the name for the coffee I like - strong espresso with hot milk, no froth and not too big. It's not a capuccino or a latte or even a machiata... at the Earls Court restaurant show they said it was a 'Bloody Akward'. But then I heard about Flat Whites and today I tried my first one in BSE! It's at Costa and costs £2.25 - more than any of the others on sale. I asked the server why? She told me it requires 3 shots of coffee and a special technique to pour it so it's ultra smooth; not because it is the newest thing on the market. Mine was delicious - but still too milky and far too big.
Meat pies, scotch eggs and the generation who buy them
Written by Claire
Edis of Ely make the best takeaway food snacks in their butchers in St Johns Street. I have mentioned them before - their still warm scotch eggs and at least three types of pasties and sausage rolls. I bought a Tin Miners for £1.35 - minced lamb, carrots and onions, perfectly seasoned, with pastry shiny with beaten egg, oozing a bit of gravy but still crisp. And I was the youngest customer in the shop !
This is an expensive farm shop, but I can't fault the food in their cafe. Lunch goes on until 4.00pm, perfect for those of us who only decide we want to go for a walk at 1pm. We look at the llamas for a few minutes to justify eating, then a table becomes available and I can only put it on the blog if I have tasted the food. We had Stowlangtoft lamb brochette (on a stick) with a lovely aubergine side, yoghurt sauce and rocket salad. A salmon fish cake with (not very sweet but very hot) sweet chili sauce, maybe they bought the wrong one... a side order of very hot and crisp french fries and a selection of three British cheeses - Keens Cheddar, Oxford Blue and Gold Medal something, that I made them swear to remember the name but they have already forgotten. All three were as delicious a cheese as you are ever going to find anywhere and served at the perfect temperature. Then puddings - white chocolate bread and butter pudding which sounds revolting but was actually much nicer than it sounds, rhubarb mousse because I haven't had any rhubarb yet, fab pink and very sweet, but on a suspect too-white (shop?) meringue basket, and carrot cake which I don't like in any shape or form but still managed to taste.
Oh the joy of eating late when you want to ! And it was lovely food; no obese oversize portions and a menu that you are never going to see in your average pub Sunday lunch. It was £15.00 each including soft drinks. Not bad for everything sourced within five miles of the kitchen - or so they say...?!
Been to see two plays in one day as part of the Halesworth HighTide festival; this theatre being one of our favourite venues in Suffolk for comedy, particularly when it's escaped unnoticed into a serious script. The food has always looked good here and I love the randomness of it, watching the cream being whipped for a raspberry cheesecake on the bar next to you while you wait for a glass of wine - everyone seems to volunteer here. I had pork, cashew and apricot terrine that came with three salads for £6 - new potato salad, cous cous and red cabbage coleslaw, topped with a bunch of watercress. It was delicious, fresh and tasty, and exactly what I wanted at 6.30pm between the plays. I could eat like this every day. By the time we got to the interval the cheesecake was ready and it was one of the best I have ever had out - anywhere. www.newcut.org
Sausage Rolls – in Rickinghall or Botesdale – not sure which.
Written by Claire
What a lovely pair of villages! Had to take my son to football so wander about looking for a home-made food shop for a late breakfast snack. Found the Co Op, but then the blinds go up on the local deli so I buy two very large sausage rolls at £1.20 each. Nice pastry and local sausage meat although my son thinks the ones he makes are better. There are home-made quiches in the freezer and a couple of nice looking cakes, but not sure why a shelf full of toilet rolls haven't been hidden round the corner...?!
A second visit here to buy cakes that I ended up giving to other people. It was closing time so got two chocolate banana muffins, a piece of carrot cake (not for me - I don't like it much) and a piece of coffee and walnut. These cakes are the BEST for miles around but remember it's only every other week.
My links with the Caribbean dictate that I have to have goat meat every now and then and now we have a supplier - the most delicious barbecued chops I have ever had jerked in England! Forgot to take a picture though.
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Went to this fantastic dance event at Debach Airfield, home to the USAF in the war. We could have been back in the 1940's if we had dressed up like the hundreds of others who did - sailors, land girls, officers - all jiving to the live band. After jiving for hours Jane was forced to try the Dinky Donuts so I had a reason to put this on my blog and next year I am definitely going to get my hair rolled.
Had lunch here to write the article for last months Suffolk magazine - delicious creamy haddock chowder with bread, followed by chilled rice pudding brulee with rhubarb, and that was more than enough for me. Nice menu with lots of choice and all kinds of things on it (especially jams and chutneys) made by food conscious local people. The great thing about this pub is how hard they are trying to do local food, and the big square family size pine table in a room by itself near the garden, which could seat ten easily for Sunday lunch. And then there are those lovely country walks with maps included to walk it all off. www.whitehorsewhepstead.co.uk
Back to BSE for lunch with my son at our favourite local restaurant (has anyone nominated it yet? It's had enough fantastic reviews online) before we go to Wales for a two night stay with Uncle David. My first ever lunch here; it's a little bit formal if you are looking for a quick three choice menu and no frills, but as usual every mouthful from the Raspberry Prosecco aperitif to the last drop of gravy on our plate is tasty, interesting and well thought out. We have the delicious and complimentary signature pea and ham croquette canape, then a soft salami paste on fresh foccacia, cod cheek tempura (for me) and snails with bone marrow (my son) and then he has a steak with fat chips and I have pigs cheeks casserole with vegetables. I have forgotten the exact menu as they wrote it but we were too full for pudding, it was £39.75 and so much better than your average restaurant I could jump for joy.
Being Suffolk born and bred you tend not to go to these touristy villages, but I had one of my favourites here recently at The Swan - calves liver. It beat other liver (and bacon) dishes I've had recently hands down, and it was nice to have a walk around afterwards - the houses really are fascinatingly wonky.